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Apr 11, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Will Grant
When the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Co. launched the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, fanfare for the new express mail service made newspaper headlines from New York to San Francisco. The cheers came loudest from California where proponents hailed its commencement as a vital step forward in linking the Far West with the rest of the country. The advertised delivery time between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, Calif. was 10 days, accomplished by a fast-horse relay.
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Apr 5, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Richard Selcer
The horse was once as essential to Western life as the six-gun, and breaking horses was once a necessary skill, even a business for a few tough, enterprising souls. Eventually it became a competitive rodeo event in which working cowboys pitted their skills against wild horses—and each other.
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Mar 22, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Preston Lewis
Of all the city slickers ever to venture into the 19th century American West, Oscar Wilde towered above the rest, preening like a peacock with his ostentatious wardrobe, his philosophy of art and his knack for spilling printer’s ink across the pages of Western newspapers. In the parlance of the cowboy, Wilde exemplified the “swivel dude,” a gaudy fellow worthy of a second look or a tip of the hat.
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Mar 18, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Gregory Lalire
The Rev. Dr. Taylor Filmore Ealy faced many struggles, most not of his own making, while a Presbyterian medical missionary between 1874 and 1881—first at Fort Arbuckle, on the Chickasaw Reservation in Oklahoma Territory; then in volatile Lincoln, New Mexico Territory; and finally at Zuni Pueblo, also in New Mexico Territory. Some of that time he kept a journal.
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Feb 27, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Chuck Lyons
Who was Etta Place? She was the lover and perhaps wife of Pennsylvania-born Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, aka the “Sundance Kid,” and a peripheral associate of the Wild Bunch, the outlaw gang headed up by Robert LeRoy Parker, aka “Butch Cassidy.” But little is known about her origins and less about what happened to her after Sundance and Butch were killed in South America.
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Feb 23, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Johnny Boggs
Picture the colorfully costumed members of the Western quartet Riders in the Sky, and you may catch yourself humming the melody of “Woody’s Roundup,” from the 1999 Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 2. But there’s far more to the Grammy-winning band and its founder, Douglas “Ranger Doug” Green.
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Feb 22, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |David Lauterborn
Adding insult to injury, a Pawnee scout for the U.S. Army shot in 1869 by a member of his own command was for decades denied a marker reflecting his Medal of Honor for the same action. What makes the oversight worse is that Sergeant Mad Bear (Co-Rux-Te-Chod-Ish) was the first American Indian ever awarded his adoptive nation’s highest honor. Thanks to the diligent research of Wild West contributor Jeff Broome, the scout may finally have his day in the sun.
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Feb 21, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Melissa Winn
Although only minorNational Park Service signage alerts you to the boundaries of the vast Gettysburg battlefield at its outer edges bleeding into neighboring counties, it’s almost impossible not to know by instinct when you’ve crossed the threshold onto its hallowed, historic ground. It just feels different. You have to wonder if the area’s residents feel the same.
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Feb 20, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |John Banks
On a cloudless, deep-blue sky afternoon, I drive 45 miles south of Nashville to Columbia for a visit with one of my favorite people, Campbell Ridley. He’s an 80-year-old semi-retired farmer, U.S. Army veteran, rock & roll devotee, and storyteller with a wit and sense of humor as sharp as the tip of a new bayonet. “How are you feeling?” I ask my friend minutes after arriving at his farm office.
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Feb 19, 2024 | 
historynet.com | Austin Stahl |Doug Hocking
Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (1931, by Stuart N. Lake) Though ex-publicity agent Stuart Lake interviewed ex-lawman Wyatt Earp on several occasions, this ostensible biography is laced with fabrications. One shouldn’t blame Earp. Lake was out to create a folk hero and sell books, and in that he succeeded admirably. Frontier Marshal served as the origin story for several Hollywood films, as well as the popular 1955–61 TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O’Brian.
